Slashdot Mirror
Brain Injury Turns Man Into Math Genius
mpicpp sends in the story of Jason Padgett, a man who developed extraordinary mathematical abilities as the result of brain trauma when he was attacked outside a bar. "Padgett, a furniture salesman from Tacoma, Wash., who had very little interest in academics, developed the ability to visualize complex mathematical objects and physics concepts intuitively. The injury, while devastating, seems to have unlocked part of his brain that makes everything in his world appear to have a mathematical structure 'I see shapes and angles everywhere in real life' — from the geometry of a rainbow, to the fractals in water spiraling down a drain, Padgett told Live Science." "He describes his vision as 'discrete picture frames with a line connecting them, but still at real speed.' If you think of vision as the brain taking pictures all the time and smoothing them into a video, it's as though Padgett sees the frames without the smoothing. "
Can someone explain to me exactly what is so marvelous about what this dude can supposedly "see"?
A google search reveals a history of his story popping up from time to time - probably whenever he can find a venue to promote himself, and whenever sites like Slashdot get duped into posting about him - but I found nothing that describes anything that he's actually able to intuit about math since this injury other than a bunch of crap about how he can 'see mathematical patterns' now. Awesome - so how about parlaying that into any statement that demonstrates any extraordinary grasp of math? Because in all my searching, I haven't found this dude to have ever said anything that anyone couldn't easily just make up.
I also found this comical link to "End of Pi Found" on some Physics forum:
http://lofi.forum.physorg.com/...
Not sure if it's the same guy but it was posted by a Jason Padgett who says he is a "math/physics student in Washington state", and the Jason Padgett in the article is supposedly from Tacoma, Washington. Note that the post was from 2008 and the article that Slashdot has linked to describes Padgett as a "sophomore in college". Some math genius - still a sophomore in college 6 years later!
Slashdot, why do you waste my time with this crap?
I swear, Slashdot editors are worse than the patent office; they don't do even he smallest amount of verification before rubber stamping what is presented to them and pushing it out.
Perhaps the karaoke did it?
love is just extroverted narcissism
Dozens killed or severely injured trying to learn maths.
All I got from a brain injury was a giant cerebral meningioma about a decade later.
Isn't this the plot of the 1996 John Travolta vehicle Phenomenon ?
Practically, the end of Pi is around 760-some digits, where you start to sound like Herman Cain. At that point, diameters won't be more than a Planck length off.
Padgett dislikes the concept of infinity, because he sees every shape as a finite construction of smaller and smaller units that approach what physicists refer to as the Planck length, thought to be the shortest measurable length.
So, the bang on the head didn't help him improve his abstract thinking after all. How can someone be an "aspiring number theorist" and dislike the concept of infinity? That's like being an aspiring blacksmith and disliking the concept of tempering carbon steel.
Ezekiel 23:20
A Math Genius would hopefully gain employment as a teacher.
So 6 years at University would be Bachelor's and working on Master's in Literature.
And.. if a genius.. would have high probability to do doctorate..??
FYI.. many can see mathematical patterns, do some homework on Chaos theory. Go try and draw a fractal or two..
and umm.. Smile dude.. you day will most likely get better.. there is a high proability if YOU smile RIGHT NOW.
You day WILL get better.
p.s. the above is MATH.. #MATHS -- See the Maths?
So a jock turns into a person with supposedly above average math capabilities, nothing out of the ordinary if you are an engineer. Would he still flunk algebra?
This symptom is similar to the problem of a video card with faulty memory.
I remember seeing a documentary similar to this. A guy dove into the shallow end of a pool and got brain damage. When he recovered he was a musical genius. There are drawbacks however, if I remember the show he said that seeing musical notes all the time was slowly driving him insane. Though this article does not mention that. [[http://www.businessinsider.com/man-becomes-piano-prodigy-overnight-after-suffering-brain-injury-2012-6]]
He strikes me as being more like David Helfgott and less like Rachmaninoff.
To a large degree in mathematics, infinity is used to invoke the limiting configuration of an unbounded process (where there is always a next step). This isn't precisely the same thing as believing in infinity itself, or any of its many discrete fragments.
Meaning in Classical Mathematics: Is it at Odds with Intuitionism
EOM
love is just extroverted narcissism
I would define someone as a "math genius" if they're able to solve previously unsolved problems, and publish results in major, refereed mathematical journals. Has he been publishing papers since his injury, or at the very least, has he been doing well on university level math exams? Nothing in the article seems to suggest this, so I do question the headline.
If I can be modded down for being a troll, can I be modded up for being an orc, or a balrog?
All processing in the brain is done with runes. It's evolution. You see things like squares, triangles and circles. I think there are about 30 of them total.
That's why you think a triangle on top of a square looks like a house. Your brain quickly interprets this set of objects that way.
Seems like this guy sees things as those runes which is pretty interesting.
I bet this is a geek conspiracy to lure football players into self-injury considering an upcoming math exam.
Can I find this bar?
I've been there, and like when I go back. Visually .. it's like lines, a grid is over everything and you know momentum and velocities without need of display.. I drempt the mathematics equation which I understand dictates my life.. in fact. The simple function .. y = 1/x. I added a dimension and connected the two at y=0. .. simulate .. those well enough for public interaction (given the correct support.) And likely most of the rest of his brain will become available in time and work.
Simple.. but in my dream!
.
It's the very male brain. I know it well.
.
For him, it's likely all that's left for now.. depending on other factors he is likely high Autism level for things like sympathy. Not completely devastation, he can learn to work with what he has to
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I wish him, and all well.
.
... because the editors shape the stories in much the same way as an asshole shapes a raunch locomotive.
Beer turns me into a love machine....
Probably the writer of the book is the person who convinced the publisher to publish the book. Unless he was that guy too.
His math is unchanged, but it *damaged* the ethical part of his brain and now he EXCELS at marketing and con-artistry and I heard he is now going to law school!
Priest: "Universe from nothing, no laws of physics, sped up time"+ huge discrepancies. Creationism? No. Big Bang Theory
Math tutor jobs abound!
When I got my brain injury, it just resulted in a coma, memory problems, and unstable moods.
Okay genius can you actually do something useful now, like the rest of us "geniuses" that are being paid $12 an hour are supposed to
Can you actually DO MATH or is it all vectors spinning in infinity that you have total awareness of that are like a bonghit but not much like a publishable insight
Infinity isn't a number; you can't add, multiply, nor divide with it. The only legitimate use I find for it, other than communicating with non-mathematical folks, is as a shorthand for unbounded, eg limit of f(x) as x tends to infinity. I suppose you could say that infinity could be used as an answer to "what is the cardinality of the set of natural numbers", but aleph_0 works too and is unambiguous as to which of the many infinities you mean.
Some people say that [sum from i=1 to i=infinity of 3*10^i] = infinity. To them I say, [sum from i=1 to i=infinity of 9*10^i]/[sum from i=1 to i=infinity of 3*10^i] = 3, but what is infinity/infinity? So long as you leave your unboundedly large numbers as their formulaic description, you can do maths with it.
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
>He is an artist, and makes Fractal art. Not that his stuff is that incredible but I doubt a furniture salesman could pull this off.
Unless the furniture salesman had access to Google. Then he might find something like Mandelbulb3D and be producing far more impressive stuff in a matter of days.
Granted, art is not math: the idea of a fractal hand was creative - not seen that before. But the rest of the circles and stuff is very, very basic. At least at first glance. Perhaps the blow to the head gave him compensate-for-blow-to-the-head skills in the form of an interest in art? I suppose he is a kind of performance artist.
I wish him well though. Brain damage is not nice, and if can make a living somehow that is good.
I have 3.141592653589793 memorized. The heck would I need 355/113 for?
Some people are just lazy.
How to memorize: Physical pattern on the numeric pad. Calculator, keyboard, whatever. Try it. Takes about five passes.
Is it so that pasting two links to the Slashdot "abstract" makes the news "scientific proof"? New Phineas Gage here or entertainment?
Any consistent set of rules creates a valid form of mathematics.
There have been mathematicians and philosophers interested in a kind of mathematics limited to finite processes. That sort of mathematics probably has uses - after all computer calculations are always a finite number of steps.
His dislike of the infinite implies, to me, that he's relying on some unconscious processes for his intuition and those processes have limitations - that doesn't make them or what they create uninteresting.
From the article
"Padgett dislikes the concept of infinity, because he sees every shape as a finite construction of smaller and smaller units that approach what physicists refer to as the Planck length."
An astounding ability indeed, given that the Planck length is so many orders of magnitude smaller than visible light, in fact it can't even been studied by our most powerful accelerators.
As it is in fact the theoretically smallest length scale possible it will actually never be 'seen', no matter how banged up the brain.
As said in another post he was a math sophomore. The "furniture salesman" is a red herring, what is important is that he had studied math. Not to put him "down" but he does not appear as interesting once you realize that it is something he studied in university.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
> Not sure if it's the same guy
It's the same guy – if you check Google for "Jason D. Padgett" he uses the same email address in stories directly linked to the guy with acquired synesthesia. Apparently recognizing certain well-known equations and having them trigger images of circles and lines in your head makes you a mathematical genius?
The whole thing is rife with the pseudo-intellectualism that pervades the art world – from the lack of a related mathematical basis to the original equations (try to find any legitimate evidence that e=mc^2 is a hexagon of hexagons surrounded by triangles), to the lack of fact checking and critical thinking on supposedly scientific websites (like never stopping to think whether he'd really still be in the same grade after 6 years). The only difference between this and visualizing the number 8 as a gray blob with a spoke was being able to convince people that there was a deeper meaning to it.
Knock some sense into you! I foresee lots of brain injuries heading into finals week. Kids please don't try this at home.
I suspect that this is more common than people think. Most of us don't let on because of the type of ridiculing seen right here on SlashDot.
At a young age I had a brain injury. As a result I lost something that is probably best described as what you are.
I was also given a medication that was in research at the time. That appears to have sped up my brain, they think by increasing the rate of transmission of nerve impulses.
Losing that part of me I gain a lack of cohesion which might be thought of an odd gain to you. But that freed up other parts and forced me to cope with the world in other ways.
I don't think in language. In fact, years later I was shocked to learn as a teen that people do think in language.
In part I think of things in part very much like he describes but with a lot more mathematics and more than just mathematics.
I have separate parts that think in terms of probabilities, geometries and calculus as well as what might be equated to a database system. I have two separate language processing systems. I have perfect sensory memory - that is a mixed blessing.
When I'm all functioning together, or at least enough of me, you don't know I'm any different than you.
When I'm not I avoid interaction with other people. I've setup my life carefully so I can control this.
I have never knowingly met someone else who has this but I suspect that is because those of us who are different from the norm don't tend to display it, rather we hide it because as children we learn how brutal normals are to anyone who is different. My IQs for math, memory, logic and language are off the scale. I'm careful not to show that but to keep my display persona within the range of 'bright'. That way the villagers don't try to burn me at the stake.
I strongly suspect that there are many people like this.
They're two very separate words, but in this rare case they both fit.
from personal experience there may be some slight truths in it although most the stuff I've seen on him (came across before this article) looks like he's full of shit. I have diagnosed aspergers, I am high functioning but have savant traits and way above average IQ and it initially became apparent as a small child. I was born at 27weeks @ 2lb1oz and in hospital for 6months at birth, due to mistake of junior nurse who did something she wasn't qualified to do (feed me) my lungs got filled with milk (the tube was supposed to go in the other tube ;) ) and I stopped breathing for 7 to 8min. There is record of all this and parents confirmed they were told there would likely be damage to my brain due to way above the oft quoted 4min barrier as well as optic damage from the oxygen given.
So it seems the accident may have been the trigger for it although a lot more at play. The traits seem to run in minor form through one side of family all of whom are educated to high degree in maths/engineering/science and work in such fields as well as extensive hobbies within them but I am unusual in it is very exaggerated in me.
I am able to visualise mathematical and scientific theories in a way but it isn't as he describes. It is more like the same appearing object to sense organ but the conceptual object linked to it tends to have the physics etc of it linked in so I notice things naturally just seeing stuff that many wont without deeper thought. I found my studies easier due to this but it isn't special since anyone can train to do it it just doesn't seem to happen naturally in many cases. The seemingly intuitive nature is just deep familiarity and many many people have that.
Actually, what he's experiencing sounds similar to what a lot of people report when taking hallucinogenic drugs, especially LSD. Apparently, a filter that most of us have in our brains may have been disabled by the injury. I don't see how that would make him a "mathematical genius" by any stretch. Now, if he's gained the ability to derive Schroedinger's Equation in his head, I'll stand corrected.
I remember this movie; it didn't end well.
the report of a woman in Perth, Scotland who started to speak with a French accent after a brain injury or a stroke (or both). She could not speak French, she just had ze aczent. She sounded good not at all like the Now Legendary TV show "Allo, Allo" (cultural oblique reference, sorry.), it was difficult not to laugh when she was interviewed on the radio.
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